Mercedes Lackey - Sleeping Beauty

At the moment, having crossed over the eastern border of a mountainous Kingdom he was hacking his way through the undergrowth of a forest that seemed to go on for an awfully long way. There were all sorts of rumors of war in this area, and war was a good way to do heroic deeds without the complications of princesses or even maidens in distress.

The first woman that young Siegfried had ever seen was one of his aunts. So was the second. And the third. And the fourth.

And, truth to tell, every other woman up to the point where he left his childhood home of Drachenthal. When your mother and father are also your aunt and uncle, things tend to be complicated that way. When both are half-godlet, and both blessed and cursed by other gods, things get even more complicated.

Such things generally lead to a life of Heroism and Doom. The Heroism part was enjoyable enough. It was the Doom part that Siegfried wasn't too fond of. Doom was generally painful, and there was never anything good when it was over, unless you were a religious fanatic who was really looking forward to the afterlife.

"So, this Kingdom is rich?" he asked his companion, a little, brown, nondescript bird. Heroes didn't usually have any interest in birds, and the names and categorization of them were generally limited in a Hero's education to "good to eat," "not good to eat," and "singing while I have a hangover, kill it with a rock."

Birds don't snort, but the bird, which he just thought of as forest bird, since that was where he had met it, made a derisive chirp. "This Kingdom is rich in the way that Eitri's Forge is a little warm."

"Well, that's good," Siegfried said with relief. "Hero work doesn't exactly pay well. Maybe if I smite enough of whoever is on the side of evil, they'll give me a reward."

Now those who are destined for a life of Heroism often begin it precociously early, often as a mere baby, with little events like strangling great serpents in the cradle — the Hero's cradle, not the serpent's. Siegfried had been no exception to that. But from everything he'd learned since, the rate of his Heroic development had overshot all others by leaps and bounds. Where other Doomed Heroes waited until their beards had begun to sprout, their voices to descend to rich baritone or melodious tenor, and they began to manifest a distinct interest in Females before slaying their first evil, gold-hoarding dragon, Siegfried had done so much earlier.

Age ten, to be precise. The age when Girls are, Traditionally, Icky. Besides, the only Girls he knew were his aunts.

So, when he tasted the Dragon's Blood and suddenly could understand the language of all of the birds and animals, and when the little forest bird began talking sense to him instead of merely shouting "Look! Look! Look at meeeeeee!" he paid attention rather than merely making use of it as a glorified guide.

"Oh I wouldn't take that" the bird had warned as he reached for a particular enticing golden ring. It was a beautiful thing. It glistened in the sunlight as if it was made of liquid, and it called to him. It whispered to him....

But it was, after all, aring. Jewelry. Girlie stuff. So — "Why not?" he had asked the bird.

"Well, since you ask, " the bird had replied, with incredible ebullience in its voice, "I'll tell you why!"

So he learned, well beforehand, that the ring would lead to power and glory — but also to a rather horrible death, being stabbedin the back of all wretched things, and worst of all....by a Girl. Not an aunt, but that didn't make it any better.

"Now on the other hand, if you just dip your sword in that blood and have another taste, you'll learn something worth knowing, and your sword will never break!" the bird had caroled. So he did. And he did. He still carried that sword; he'd been a very large boy at ten and strong for his age, as befitting a Hero, after all.

And at ten years old, Siegfried of Drachenthal learned that he had been a game piece all of his life in the metaphorical hands of The Tradition. That he was supposed to go and wake up a sleeping woman, that they would fall in love, and that this was going to lead to an awful lot of unpleasant things. And that if he didn't somehow find a way around it, he was Doomed.

At ten, Doom didn't seem quite as horrid a fate to try to avoid as a Girl was. But it seemed that by avoiding that one particular Girl, in those particular circumstances, who would be the first woman he had ever seen who was not an aunt, he would also avoid the Doom. So he did. He got away from Drachenthal, had the bird scout on ahead so that the first woman he ever saw was not his aunt but someone's lively old granny, and began searching for a way to have a Happy, rather than a Tragically Heroic, ending.

At twenty, the idea of a Girl all his own seemed rather nice, but Doom was definitely to be avoided. He had begun to think about this, rather than just merely avoiding all sleeping women in fire circles wearing armor. Other Heroes ended up with Princesses, castles, happy endings, dozens of beautiful children. Why couldn't he?

The bird had been of the opinion that he ought to be able to, if he could trick The Tradition into confusing his fate with some other sort of Hero's. That sounded good to Siegfried. The other thing at twenty that was starting to have appeal was the idea that he could settle down somewhere. At the moment, the height of luxury for him was a reasonably vermin-free bed in a reasonably priced inn with decent meals and a good strong ale. He would look at palaces and castles and wealthy manors and sigh; the only time he ever saw the inside of one of those was if he'd been invited to a victory celebration, a recruitment — which half the time was into the service of evil, which was right out — or by someone who intended to kill him. So, it was two chances in four that he was going to get to enjoy a sumptuous meal, and not have to fight his way out of it before he got the first bite of roast peacock.

"So, in order to hoodwink The Tradition, all I have to find is someone blond, asleep in a ring of fire and flowers, who is not a Shieldmaiden demigoddess, and wake her up?" he was asking the bird, as he hacked his way through the underbrush with his ever-sharp, unbreakable sword.

"That's the basic idea," the bird said, fluttering from branch to branch beside him. "Really, if you were desperate enough, you could just find a nice little goose-girl, ask her to lie down for a quick nap, set the turf on fire and shake her awake to see if that worked."

"Do you really think it would?" he asked hopefully. He was getting rather tired of running from his fate. He'd had to flee at least six Kingdoms in the last year, six times he'd been wandering about a perfectly nice forest, looking for evil to conquer, and suddenly — bang — there would be a clearing in front of him, with a stone slab in the middle of it, adorned with a beautiful sleeping woman dressed in armor of the gods, surrounded by rings of magic fire and flowers. He was beginning to wonder if it was the same woman every time, and The Tradition just kept moving her.

"I'd say it's worth a try. I think the wench with the bronze bosoms is stalking you." The bird was very cheerful about it. Then again, the bird wasn't going to share his Doom if he accidentally woke the woman up. "And you know, you could always give up the heroics and be a blacksmith. You'd be quite good at it. You've had the best teachers."

He had; Dwarves. They were about the best blacksmiths in the entire world, barring gods. And given what his fate was, he would really rather avoid gods. He'd forged his own sword from the remains of the one that his father had carried, in fact, the same year he slew the dragon. But —

"I don't know the first thing about horseshoes, or plowshares, or all those things farmers need," he replied, sadly. "I'd be a middling blacksmith for those purposes, and I really don't like it much. I like being a Hero and I'm good at it."